Lonely are the Brave
by rubypop
Summary: McCree returns to Hanamura seeking a very particular bounty: a disgraced assassin prince haunted by the ghosts of his past. Sequel to "Once Upon a Time in the East." (McHanzo, Part 2 of the 3-part series, "High Noon in the Far East.")


**Lonely are the Brave  
** by rubypop **  
**

 _No choice. I have no choice._

When he thinks back to it now, Hanzo remembers the blade shaking in his hand. He remembers wrongly. For when the time came, he held the blade steady as he cut down his brother. Duty and responsibility were trained into him as deeply as swordsmanship and killing, and all of these things coalesced into an elegant dance to end the young Shimada's life. The Sparrow fought, yes, how wildly he fought, after the initial shock of betrayal passed — but in the end, Hanzo sheathed his sword over a silent, shredded corpse. He stared, numbly, at the red-painted dojo, could not bear to look upon the body itself, and he departed the room with stiff, automatic strides, and he walked the Shimada compound covered in blood, a duty-bound ghost whose scabbard leaked his brother's life in his wake.

Kuro was the one who finally found him, blood-soaked and dead-eyed outside of the family tomb. The sword lay half-sheathed in the grass as though flung. When Kuro spoke to him, Hanzo did not look away from the door of the tomb.

There were no funeral rites, no bones to pluck from the ash. Hanzo was too silent, too catatonic, too drunk, for weeks. Kuro pulled him again and again from pools of his own vomit, bathed him clean. He whispered the elders' congratulations to Hanzo, who still did not look at him, who still did not speak. Kuro shaved him, fed him, even tried to kiss him, and it was then that Hanzo finally fixed him with a hard, deadly stare, and Kuro did not attempt this again.

When Hanzo left the clan he did so without a trace, leaving behind everything: the sword, the tomb, the elders and their congratulations, even Kuro, who discovered Hanzo's empty room with a sinking dread.

Thus the Shimada family's centuries-long reign came to a close, though the clan itself lived on, mutating and growing even deadlier through the following years of hotly-contested leadership.

Hanzo himself now wanders the world, abandoning swordsmanship for the bow, for he can scarcely look upon a blade without seeing the bisection of his brother Genji's shocked, saddened face.

McCree, occupied with his own life-changing upheaval, does not encounter the former assassin prince for a long, long time.

He never did trust that witchy Moira woman. From the very beginning, she sent out some seriously bad vibes. But what the boss says goes, and Reyes wanted the edge that (McCree assumes) only a crazy, disgraced geneticist could provide. It was a chicken-and-egg situation, really, the whole Moira-Reyes-rumblings-of-rebellion-coup-d'etat thing. And when the time came for Reyes to demand McCree's loyalty, it wasn't exactly a crisis of conscience for McCree to say no.

The response definitely didn't make the boss-man happy, though McCree thought it a bit of an overreaction to take his left arm.

With Overwatch kaput, it's been a half-decade of train-hopping and justice-dispensing for McCree, which has turned out to be a lot more fun than all the murder-torture-kidnapping that Reyes was so fond of. And it turns out, it's more of a self-esteem booster to read about yourself in the papers when you're thwarting bank robberies and not, say, violating international law.

And so for a while McCree is content with his new life as a vigilante gun-for-hire, never once realizing that Hanzo's life has taken quite a similar path, until these paths reconverge at last in the historical district of Hanamura, Japan.

#

McCree is happily polishing off some noodles at a Rikimaru Ramen truck when three men (and one omnic) in black suits approach. He ignores them at first, focused on finishing his bowl before the noodles get mushy. It's only when the omnic grips his shoulder that he pauses, chewing, and tips his hat back with annoyance.

"Y'all need somethin?" he says.

"You were not present," the omnic barks, "at the requested time, gaijin." From behind, McCree hears knuckles cracking and a sidearm sliding from a coat pocket.

"Well, I can't say I know what you're yammerin about. I'm just mindin my own business'n enjoyin these fine noodle soups. Ain't nothin like em the world-over. 'N you can trust me on that."

"Know that this is Shimada territory. And you have deeply upset the oyabun."

"Change in management's a real stickler, huh? This place sure is quiet nowadays. I seem to remember a lotta foreigners round here, not long ago. Didn't some cherry blossom fandango used to be held 'round here or somethin?" McCree lifts the bowl and gulps down the broth. When he's done, he puffs out a sigh of pleasure. "Ah! Nothin like it in the world." He tips his hat to the shopkeeper, who is watching anxiously from the truck. " _Arigatougozaimashita_." He then grins at the Shimada men. "I been practicin, y'see."

The omnic strikes him with the butt of a sidearm. McCree buckles, but does not fall, from the blow. He hawks a gob of blood onto the grass and gives them all a hurt look.

"Mighty rude," he says. "Mighty rude."

The omnic stays with McCree while the others approach the truck, where they converse with the shopkeep in harsh Japanese. McCree eyes them, sliding a hand to his holster. The omnic releases the safety of his gun and levels the barrel to McCree's eyes. McCree grins.

"You harrassin that noodle-wrangler? For what? He ain't involved."

The omnic does not respond. Meanwhile, one of the Shimada men seizes the shopkeep by his apron and yanks him, roughly, out of the truck. He dumps the man on the ground while his companion snatches fistfuls of cash from the window. McCree stands at once, and the omnic presses the gun squarely between his eyes.

"Sit, gaijin."

"I reckon it's you who should si'down," McCree says, and with a flick of the wrist he unleashes a flashbang, forcing the omnic into a stagger. He seizes the gun, twirls the Peacemaker and fires, rat-tat-tat, taking out all but one of them. The shopkeep squeals and covers both ears. The remaining Shimada goon fires on McCree, and McCree dives, tumbles across the grass, and drags the shopkeep behind the truck.

A barrage of gunfire riddles the side of the truck, nearly tossing it off of its tires. McCree peeks out. At least a dozen more black suits have come running, guns drawn. He spins the Peacemaker's cylinder, reloads, and takes a steadying breath.

"Well ain't this fine as cream gravy," he mumbles, and another wave of bullets jostles the truck, loosing a tureen of soup that sieves onto the ground.

"Hey, can we just talk about this?" McCree shouts. "The o-ya-boon can't be that upset. You're makin casualties of some seriously fine eats."

There is only angry Japanese in return, and McCree takes a breath, pops over the hood of the truck, and ratchets the hammer of his gun. Six men fall, and he drops back just in time to avoid losing his hat to a hail of bullets.

"Heavens to Betsy," he mutters, and is reloading again when a resounding THWPP echoes from behind the truck, and a series of loud thuds quickly follow.

McCree peers over the hood again. Three of the goons lay thrashing and moaning, and a single, vibrating arrow stands planted in the ground. The remaining men whip around in confusion, pointing their guns at the sky. McCree doesn't even blink before another arrow strikes the street and ricochets in a scatter of blue light, taking down all but one.

The last goon raises his gun and shudders back, dropping, a third arrow buried in his eye socket.

McCree turns at once and sees only a ripple of gold fabric that vanishes through the sash of an open window.

He scrambles into action, taking off down the alley of an adjoining building, while the Rikimaru shopkeep peeks through his fingers at the aftermath.

McCree runs as fast as he can, keeping an eye on the rooftops above. Every now and then there is a flicker of movement, a flash of that gold fabric. His pulse pounds with anticipation. He thinks back to a grieving assassin prince. He thinks of Genji Shimada, dismembered and near-dead, as they loaded him into the Blackwatch rescue craft. He thinks of the day's bounty readout, the sketch of a familiar, and not-so-familiar, cold-blooded killer.

He thinks of the reward. Ten thousand large US. The new Shimada fat cat really wants this man dead.

He skids around a corner, sees him at last: yes, there, a small figure perched on a rooftop overhead, it's Hanzo, it must be.

McCree looses his gun and fires once, a warning shot. The figure leaps immediately, trailing gold. He sails into a graceful flip and fires a shot of his own. Another fracturing arrow, which dances through the alley toward McCree. McCree tumbles, and his hat goes flying, pinned to the vapidly-grinning face of a Pachimari mascot. He curses and yanks the hat free, and when he turns back Hanzo is scaling the wall of a shrine. McCree snaps the Peacemaker forward and fires.

The lip of the tiled roof that Hanzo is gripping explodes in a shower of debris, and he slides, unable to keep his footing. McCree charges, watching as Hanzo claws the slick wall, and then McCree dives, stretching, and he pitches into a roll that ends with him catching Hanzo at the base of the shrine.

He grunts beneath Hanzo's weight, stunned that he made it in time.

The victory is short-lived. Hanzo instantly flips up, heaves an enormous bow over McCree's head, and drags him by the throat into the shrine. McCree gags, his boot-spurs sparking over the cobbled street.

"Idiot," Hanzo hisses. "Are you trying to call attention to yourself?"

"Well, it's sure nice to see you too," McCree says, and Hanzo yanks the bow again, gagging him.

"Maybe I just wanted to get your attention, eh, darlin? S'been awhile."

"You're lucky I don't kill you where you stand, cowboy."

"Well you can at least let me get a gander at you. S'been years, and this wall ain't much to look at."

"What are you doing here? Did the clan hire you?"

McCree chuckles. "Almost. You know you're worth ten thousand big ones?"

Hanzo's teeth creak.

"Listen, I now owe you big time for gettin me outta that hairy situation back there. You weren't doin yourself any favors stickin your neck out for me. I ain't turnin you in after that. So, c'mon. Truce?"

Hanzo hesitates. Slowly he lifts the bow from McCree's throat, and McCree sighs with relief, rubbing his Adam's apple.

"Thanks, partner," he says, turning. "I really —"

He nearly walks into the silver tip of an arrow that Hanzo has pointed, fully-nocked, at his nose.

"Whoa," he says, arms up, and Hanzo walks him to the shrine wall, where he presses himself flat. "How many dodgasted stick-ups am I gettin into today?"

"I don't trust you," Hanzo says. "I don't trust anything you say."

McCree shrugs. "Can't say I blame you. Not after'n what they-all put you through."

Hanzo squints at him suspiciously.

McCree responds with a sympathetic smile. It's been five short years since he last saw Hanzo — hell, since Hanzo last had him up against a wall, how about that — but the years have been kind to neither of them. Hanzo himself could have aged over a decade, his once-feminine jaw now bearded and set, gray flecking his temples and chin. An eternal scowl has scored his forehead with lines, and an emptiness lurks in his sharpshooter's glare. His eyes flicker now to McCree's left arm, noticing the prosthetic.

McCree chuckles and gives him a half-hearted wave. "I seen my own hardships, too. Always thought the boss-man had my back. Turns out a close-range shotgun blast's a mighty efficient way to dispel that bit'a naivete."

"I atone for my own actions," Hanzo says. "Not for the betrayals of others."

"Yeah, well, I weren't no angel or anythin neither. We got a lot in common, you'n me. Hired guns'n all. Or in your case." McCree nods to the arrow. "Hired . . . bow? Outlaws dispensin justice our own ways."

"There is no such thing," Hanzo huffs, "as justice in this world."

"Mighty depressin way of lookin at life."

"I have nothing left to live for."

"You got some kinda death wish, then? S'that why you come back to this pit o'vipers year after year?"

Hanzo's face reddens. "How do you know such things?"

McCree winks. "I still got a few friends'n the intelligence community, here'n there. Now. Don't you want to make an ally after all this time?" He sticks out his hand. "The name's Jesse McCree, by the bye."

Hanzo glances from McCree to his hand and back again. He slowly lowers his bow. "What do you want from me, cowboy?"

"Just t'be friends, is all. You showed me a mighty fine good time, I thought we could at least get t'know each other."

Hanzo's blush darkens, and he scowls. "Do not ever," he growls, "speak of that night again."

"Whoa, was it that bad?"

Hanzo shoulders his bow with a jerk and turns.

McCree seizes his tattooed arm. "Hey, wait a minute."

Hanzo lurches away, but McCree holds firm, gripping the dragon-coiled bicep. Hanzo avoids his eyes. Shafts of sunlight filter through the windows of the shrine, lighting up the gray that streaks his hair. McCree pulls him closer, and says urgently, "If you won't accept my help, at least tell me why."

"You know what has happened," Hanzo murmurs. "What I have done. My brother. I must continue to honor his memory. Even if it means risking death."

McCree says, "Your brother . . ."

"What remains of the clan seeks to eliminate me." Hanzo chuckles bitterly. "I do not know why they think of me as a threat. I have no desire to challenge what is theirs."

"Do you know," McCree says slowly, "who put out the hit on you?"

"It does not matter."

"The guy who took over. Who won out after all the infightin. The new head honcho." McCree takes a breath. "Name of Kuro Usagi."

Hanzo's eyes flash. He grasps McCree's shoulder, shoves him back against the wall. "Kuro Usagi?" he growls. "You are sure?"

"I figgered you'd find that name familiar."

"Kuro . . ." Hanzo releases him, and he punches the wall next to McCree's head. " _Kisama_! _Chikuso_!"

"If'n you wanted to pay him a visit, uh —"

"I will confront him," Hanzo roars, "on my own."

"Now, don't go off half-cocked —"

"You will stay out of this." Hanzo shoves him again. "If you continue to meddle with my affairs, I will put you down. There is no dishonor in executing an outlaw. Mark my words."

McCree raises his hands in surrender. Hanzo spits at his feet, fixes him with a final glare, and vanishes, darting off. McCree scratches the back of his head.

"Certainly ain't makin this easy for me," he mumbles, and he tosses back his serape, adjusts his hat, and he takes his leave, musing over the layout of the Shimada compound as he goes.

#

Hanzo descends upon the compound in the dark of night, slipping past the guards with ease. He races silently over the tiled rooftops, and scales the castle walls like a shadow. The sight of his former home, the magnificence of blossom-heavy trees and carefully-tended gardens, brings no sense of nostalgia to him. He has hardened himself to these sights over these past years, killing all traces of sentimentality. Typically, he is here for one purpose — his yearly offering to the brother he slayed — but today, an additional objective looms.

The dojo is silent this evening, dark, unperturbed. He enters it with caution. There is no reason for the clan to leave this place unguarded, not on this night, and suspicion guides him. He creeps to the rear of the dojo, to the carved-magnolia stand that displays the disgraced sword, the scroll that hangs above it, nearly halved by a single upward stroke, still adorned with his brother's blood. He stares at the sword with gravity, and he kneels, laying aside his bow. He lights incense, sits listening for intruders. He lays a single sparrowhawk feather on the mats.

He closes his eyes, and he prays.

When the footsteps come he is not surprised, and he waits, adrenaline tugging his reflexes taut as bow-strings. The intruder allows him to finish his prayer. He lifts his bow as he stands, and he focuses on the arc of dried blood on the hanging scroll. He remembers this strike, the fatal blow that cut his brother's face in twain. He remembers the eyes that rolled back, the life leaving them. The silent body that drained into the mats.

When he turns, he snaps around with two arrows drawn, nocking them with a brutality that makes the bow-string sing.

In the center of the dojo is a long figure, it is Kuro Usagi, draped in a haori of black and gold, the full sleeves hiding his fingertips. His narrow chest is bare and aglow in the dark. His oiled hair flows in streams that flutter to his waist, and the low firelight flashes from the gilded combs that gather his tresses into a sakko-style bun. He smiles at Hanzo with a dreamlike serenity.

"Hanzo," he whispers, stepping forward, unafraid of the bow. He extends his arms. " _Bocchan_. Young master."

Hanzo raises the bow higher, and when Kuro continues his leisurely approach he steps back, upsetting the incense stand.

"Stay back," Hanzo utters, and the scent of safflower and clove suffuses him.

"Is this how you greet me," Kuro says delicately, "after all these years?"

"Even after sending your dogs to pursue me, you play at such pleasantries? I am not a fool."

Kuro halts, lowers his arms. His black eyes, etched in scarlet paint, glimmer with amusement. "Not a fool, no," he says. "Never."

"I have heard of the power struggles left in my wake," Hanzo says. "Tell me, why would the elders deem you worthy to rule the clan?"

Kuro chuckles. When he glides forward again, Hanzo sidesteps him, moving quickly away. Kuro kneels before the sword, righting the incense stand. He delicately picks the sticks of incense from the floor, and Hanzo's arrows tremble against the bow. He glimpses Kuro's fingertips, long and black, emerging and vanishing again beneath the embroidered sleeves.

"Why, the elders are dead, young master," Kuro says. His black fingertips caress the shaft of the sparrowhawk feather.

Hanzo starts. "Do not sully my offering."

Kuro rises, pushing back the tresses of his hair. He smiles again at Hanzo. "Their deaths do not upset you?"

"May they rot in hell."

"Indeed." Kuro nods his head in a slight bow. "So we are in agreement, you and I."

"I wish only to honor my brother in peace," Hanzo says. "I am no threat to what the clan has become. Why do you send assassins to kill me?"

"Hanzo." Kuro opens his arms again. "Oh, how I've missed you."

Hanzo retreats a step. "Do not come near me."

"I know," Kuro says, "that you have missed me as well. Surely you must. Surely you dream of me, in your most private moments."

Hanzo shakes his head, takes a step back, keeps shaking it.

"Let me touch you," Kuro whispers, and he snaps his wrists up, shaking the sleeves back. Hanzo's breath catches.

The memory of Kuro Usagi's arms, sleeved in black rabbits and gold clouds, flashes through his mind, the memory of slender white hands slipping, caressing, the weeks that those hands dressed him, bathed him, seeking nothing more than to revive him. Instead he sees now gleaming joints of articulated metal, spindly fingers that come to wicked points, long forearms paneled black-and-gold in a cruel imitation of those elegant tattoos.

Hanzo does not realize that he is lowering his bow, does not hear the arrows that drop to the ground and scatter at his feet.

The first cold fingertip touches his face, glides along his cheekbone with a needlelike edge. Kuro draws him close, easing the bow from his grip.

"Young master," he breathes, brushing Hanzo's lips with his own. "Oh, how the years have changed you. How you must have suffered."

Hanzo is paralyzed, unable to process what he is seeing. Kuro kisses his unresponsive lips with a chuckle.

"As you can see, I have suffered too."

The mechanical arms press close, folding Hanzo in their cold embrace.

"The elders," Kuro murmurs, "were displeased. Very displeased. When you had gone."

The arms pull tighter, gripping Hanzo now like a vise.

"They asked me many things. Yes. For surely the future saiko-komon would know, would have perhaps conspired to secure, the whereabouts of their absconded successor."

Kuro kisses Hanzo again, gently, pulls away, penetrates him with his gaze.

"With each question I could not answer," he says, "they took one finger. Digit by digit. And then, one hand. Another. A forearm, to the elbow. And then the rest, to the very sockets."

He releases Hanzo then, and the black hands lift, sliding beneath the lapels of Kuro's haori. He pushes it back, and it drops, revealing that the black-and-gold prosthetics reach past his shoulders, spindly and unreal beside his living white flesh.

"They were displeased," Kuro says. "Very displeased. With what I could not produce."

"Kuro," Hanzo whispers.

"But here you are." The black arms spread wide. "My master, back again. Here to make offerings to the lamb you slaughtered so."

"I did not know," Hanzo says. "I had no way of knowing. That they —"

"Would pursue you so viciously? My master." Kuro giggles. "It was at their command that you killed your own brother. And then you betrayed them, abandoned the very plan of succession that you ensured, yourself." His face grows serious now. "You abandoned me."

Hanzo steps back again, suddenly remembering his bow. His fingers flex in their shooter's glove.

"I howled with every cut," Kuro says. A dark skein now descends over his eyes. "They held me to the coals. They cauterized each and every wound. So that I would not bleed out. Before they cut me again. This . . ."

Hanzo breathes in deeply, silently, his muscles cabling.

". . . is all your doing."

Hanzo darts for the bow, seizes it, and grasps at his arrows, but he scarcely grazes their fletchings when a heavy chain lashes, quick as a snake, around his forearm. He glances up. Kuro is grinning wickedly, his left arm at full extent. The chain he has flung from a notch in his palm, and it loops to his other hand, where it terminates in a deadly blade. A _kusarigama_ — chain-and-sickle — built directly into the weapon that he has become.

Kuro yanks back the chain, and Hanzo stumbles. Hanzo swings his bow, trying to throw him off, but Kuro hooks it with the sickle and wrenches it aside. Hanzo lets the bow drop and tries to escape, but his arm is still entangled by the chain, and he's forced to dodge this way and that as Kuro brings his sickle down again and again.

Hanzo seizes the chain with his free hand, jerks it back, and smashes his forehead into Kuro's.

Kuro staggers to the floor. Hanzo claws at the chain at his arm and finds, at last, the heavy iron weight that knots it into place. He frees himself, and Kuro snaps his arm back, ratcheting the chain back into his palm. He lashes out with the sickle and slices Hanzo's ankles, and Hanzo buckles, collapsing onto the tatami.

Kuro rises, heaving. Hanzo pushes himself from the mats, trying to stand, but the severed tendons in his ankles give out and he falls again with a cry.

Kuro circles him, the sickle-blade dripping red. He swings the weighted end once, twice, in leisurely circles. He murmurs, "You are not nearly so fierce without your sword." He chuckles, and then he whips the chain down again, lashing it around Hanzo's throat. He drags Hanzo up, and Hanzo chokes, dangling with his knees just off the ground.

"They made me their plaything, young master," Kuro hisses. He slides the sickle along Hanzo's cheek, leaving a bloody red line. "They were not finished with me when they took my arms, no, they were not. I was their toy, their pet assassin, cutting down all who challenged the empty throne you left behind. They forced me to crawl upon the ground, to serve them sake once kept private for your royal blood. 'Precious rabbit,' they spat, laughing in their drunkenness."

Hanzo grips the chain, heaving.

"They ordered me festooned in flowers, they passed me around to their wretched friends." Kuro's eyes are distant now, unfocused, and he smiles. "And so one day I crowned myself in aconite blossoms, and I ringed each sake cup with their toxin, and I cried, ' _Konbei_! _Konbei_!' as the old devils drank, and when one by one they began to foam at the mouth I sat and watched them die."

He grips Hanzo by the jaw, pulls him close, whispers against his gasping lips, "They had him killed, you know. Your father. They had me press the wolfsbane to his mouth myself, while he slept. The toxin leaves no trace. None at all."

Hanzo's eyes widen. A stab of hot pain cleaves his heart, and a roar builds inside of him, stoppered by the chain that is strangling the life from him. He thrashes wildly in Kuro's grip.

Kuro giggles softly. "And you threw it away. All of it. Everything that I gave you. Over your foolish simpleton of a brother."

Hanzo is slipping, sliding to his knees. The dojo is growing dark. He sees nothing beyond Kuro's eerie grin, feels nothing save for pure, animalistic rage.

 _Forgive me, brother. Forgive me, father. Forgive your unworthy son_.

A crack, an explosion, a bullet splits the air.

Hanzo drops, helpless. He thinks, at once, that he has been shot. But there is an upheaval of movement, a scuffle above him, and when he blinks his vision clear he realizes that he can breathe again, that the chain that joined him to Kuro has been severed. A burst of red catches his eye, one that resolves into a flapping serape, and he sees McCree wrestle Kuro to the ground, spurs spinning, and the sickle flashes as it comes up, readying to drag itself across the exposed back of McCree's neck.

Hanzo seizes the crook of the black elbow, yanking the sickle away. Kuro roars. McCree pins Kuro's chest with a knee and readies his revolver, and then Kuro's wrist flickers, burying the sickle into Hanzo's side.

Pain, like nothing he has ever felt before. Hanzo slumps, clutching the blade, and blood wells in thick gouts between his fingers. McCree turns, distracted, lets out a cry. Kuro strikes McCree's face with his needlelike claws, and McCree falls, tumbling next to Hanzo.

Hanzo stares at McCree, who blinks back at him through bleeding scratches. McCree gives him a small, reassuring smile, and then Hanzo hears footsteps, an approaching army of guards, and Hanzo coughs blood, squeezing the wound in his side tighter.

"S'gonna be okay, darlin," McCree whispers, as Hanzo begins to fade.

"S'gonna be okay."

 _Forgive me. Forgive me . . ._

 _No choice . . . I had . . . no choice . . ._

Redness, darkness, and an enduring pain, as Hanzo passes out at the site of his brother's slaughter.

#

It's a shootout now, one man versus an army, the biggest gunfight Hanamura probably ever done saw. O. K. Corral, eat your heart out, McCree thinks, as the gunfire contracts his hearing into a concentrated whine.

He's thrown his serape over Hanzo, who is looking much paler than McCree is comfortable with. He'd dragged Hanzo to a little alcove behind the dojo where a small meeting room was hidden away, and he crouches there now, peering around the corner. Unfortunately, the whole damn building seems to be made of wood and paper, and with each volley of headshots that McCree delivers comes a response of gunfire that punches holes through his cover.

McCree fires, reloads, fires, reloads. Shafts of moonlight glow through the perforations in the walls. A bullet strikes his prosthetic arm, which rings like a spitoon. The vibration hums through his shoulder to his very teeth.

McCree sees the glow of a crappy old television screen, the shivering black-and-white frames of bandits on horseback, of Rooster Cogburn and the Lone Rider, spinning cylinders, the black hats falling to the good guys. He grits his teeth, dives onto Hanzo as a hail of bullets riddles the wall. He reloads the Peacemaker one-handed. He leans out again and he fires. Rat-tat-tat. Headshot, headshot, headshot.

When the wall behind him looks weak enough he kicks through it, hard, and he flings Hanzo over his shoulder, and he slips out, fleeing through the rear of the compound as Kuro Usagi's goons continue firing on the empty room. When they hold long enough to realize he is not firing back, they investigate, finding only a bullet-riddled cowboy hat perched just behind cover.

You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, McCree thinks, staggering under Hanzo's weight, and you gotta know when to run.

The old Overwatch safehouse just outside of Hanamura is, thankfully, still in operation, even if McCree has to kick the door open to access it without a key. It's located deep inside a maze of alleyways and nondescript apartments, well-hidden by the generic modern architecture. Immediately he lays Hanzo in the safehouse's single bed and goes digging for a first aid kit. Once found, he sets to work cleaning and stitching Hanzo's wounds.

Hanzo slowly wakes with a grimace as McCree stitches the gash in his side. He nearly cringes away, but McCree steadies him, whispering, "Shh, don't move. I'm almost done."

He finishes stitching with quick, delicate strokes, and Hanzo blinks repeatedly from the pain. McCree laughs softly as he cleanses the wound with disinfectant. "Awful skittish, aren'tcha?"

"You didn't have to help me," Hanzo says, grimacing again. "Kuro must think me . . . quite a coward . . ."

"Partner, you know I don't care a continental about your honor, or his honor, or whosoever's." McCree sits back, observing his work. "Though I do miss my hat. Awful sacrifice to make just to save your ungrateful tuckus."

Hanzo looks away, his brow creasing.

"Now y'best lay low for a while til you're healed up. Those Shimadas'll think you split the country by then. Or that you bled out."

"They will not think me dead until they've burned my corpse themselves."

"Morbid." McCree picks through the first aid kit, finds a pair of pliers, and sets to work removing the bullet from his prosthetic arm. "Y'know, you really need to learn to lighten up. S'not healthy bein such an old croaker all the time."

"My only duty," Hanzo says slowly, "is to honor my brother. No matter what that brings."

"You still plannin on goin back next year? I reckon Kuro Usagi's gonna up the ante a li'l bit, then."

"It is a sacrifice that is still short of worthy."

With a _ping_ McCree drops the extracted bullet to the floor. A struggle is raging inside of him, seeing Hanzo so determined to honor the death of a man who had not, in fact, actually died. He's almost ready to spill the beans when Hanzo sits up.

"Whoa, partner," McCree says, catching him by the shoulders.

"Kuro," Hanzo gasps, "is mad. He besmirches the Shimada name."

"Y'know you're only just one man, right?" McCree says softly. "Y'can't just right every single wrong that's in the world."

Hanzo can only give him a long, stricken look, the helplessness of which breaks McCree's heart.

"Hey," he says," and Hanzo's face is already crumpling, overwhelmed at the gravity of what he may have caused.

McCree pulls Hanzo into a fierce embrace. Hanzo does not clutch him back, but he does not pull away, surrendering to the larger man's grip. All at once, McCree is struck by how frail Hanzo has become, his lithe archer's figure wilting, his resolve shocked to the core.

"S'gonna be okay," McCree says, and, without thinking, he drops a kiss onto Hanzo's head.

McCree nearly freezes at the forwardness of this gesture, but Hanzo miraculously eases into the kiss, burying his face in McCree's chest. He weakly reaches out, and then McCree is wrapped in his arms, their hearts beating together.

McCree allows Hanzo to initiate the next kiss, cautious to let him set the pace.

Hanzo kisses him not with the desperate hunger he showed five years before, but with a sweet sense of surrender. It does not seem a path to more lurid things, nor a false return on McCree's show of affection: it's merely a kiss for a kiss's sake, lingering, hesitating, trusting. McCree cups his whiskered cheek.

It's Hanzo who takes the lead, parting his kimono and tugging it from his shoulders, and McCree unfastens his tac-vest in a sign of agreement. Hanzo's fingers are long and slender, unbuttoning McCree's shirt with ease, and when McCree pulls the shirt away Hanzo touches the tufts of hair on his brown chest with a sort of reverence.

Their rhythm is slow and relaxed. They take their time exploring one another, their bodies so different, Hanzo's pale and cabled with lean muscle, McCree's sun-browned and scarred and barrel-chested. When McCree touches Hanzo's silky foreskin, the assassin prince shivers, and McCree goes slowly, stroking with the utmost care, as though he is handling something precious. Hanzo's face darkens in a deep blush, and McCree kisses him again, reassuring him.

"I have never," Hanzo says slowly, "liked this part of myself."

"Well, me, I'm pretty fond of it."

The blush deepens, and McCree wants to laugh, but doesn't for Hanzo's sake. "I mean the . . . the . . ."

"The part that's into cowboys?"

Hanzo is now so red he's almost purple, and McCree pecks his lips again.

"Don't worry, darlin," he says softly. "No worries here. Not with me."

Hanzo shuts his eyes. He rakes his fingers down McCree's chest, fingernails dragging through the curls of hair.

"Where do you want to go with this, darlin?" McCree murmurs.

Hanzo gasps. "I. I don't . . ."

"Don't worry. We'll go slow."

"Just let me touch you."

They wind around one another, forehead to forehead. McCree can tell that Hanzo is getting close. He gives Hanzo's neck a few little bites, gently, gently. Hanzo clutches him, gasping, trying to last. His eyes are still shut, as if he's afraid to look.

He comes and it is a release, his body tightening and slackening again, bathing McCree's stomach in sticky warmth. He flinches then, hard, and McCree glances down to see that the wound in his side has reopened, welling with blood.

McCree starts, goes to staunch it, and Hanzo seizes his wrist, stopping him.

"No," Hanzo breathes. "No. Just. Let me bleed."

McCree cradles his head. Hanzo is limp in his arms, gasping, until slowly he goes quiet, and then neither of them speak, not for a long time.

###

This story will conclude with Part 3,  
"The Man from Hanamura"


End file.
